Chapter 11: Good News

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing

With a broken heart that's still beating

In the pain there is healing

In your name I find meaning

"How do I know that it'll never happen again?"

"Because I know that she feels awful and regrets what she did," Mac says, lying just a little; he knew she regretted not telling him, not actually disobeying him. "I don't blame her for being personally connected to the case; Diakos tried to kill her after all. It's natural that she wanted him locked up."

"Mac, she endangered others. I can't have someone like that on the police force," Sinclair tells him.

"These men were dangerous whether it was her going after them or the Major Case team. Someone could have gotten killed either way. Stella is very passionate about what she does, and sometimes she gets a little… carried away in her search for justice. But I assure you, Chief, I will not let it happen again."

"Are you doing this for her or for yourself?"

"I'm doing this for the team. We depend on each other, and if you let Stella go, there will a large gap in our team that may affect our abilities as a team. We draw off each other's strengths and work together to improve our weaknesses. That is what makes our team the best at what we do."

He sighs, "Mac, I can't let her go without punishment."

"I have suspended her for a month. However, I see no reason why she can't come back to work now as long as she doesn't get paid since it is a busy time of the year for us."

Sinclair stares at Mac for a moment before answering. "Fine. But if anything else happens, I'm not guaranteeing that it will stay hidden. And she will be fired. You're responsible for keeping her in line."

"Thank you, sir," Mac offers his hand, but Sinclair doesn't move. He exits the office, heading down to get his things and go home to Stella.

Broken

"Hey," Mac says coming up behind her as she finishes getting ready for their date.

"Hi. How was your day?"

"Not too exciting. But I have some good news for you."

"Sinclair finally decided to fire me?"

"No."

"You found me another job?"

"No. Actually, I have two pieces of good news."

"Are you really going to stand there and make me guess or are you going to tell me?" she turns to face him, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"It's much more fun to watch you guess," he smiles.

"By the time I figure it out, we'll have missed our dinner reservations."

"First, Sinclair has decided not to fire you. You're welcome to come back to work, but… you won't get paid until your month on suspension is over. I mean, if you want to come back even though you're not getting paid. There was no way I was going to convince him to let you come back without some type of punishment."

"I guess that's good," she says, not seeming very happy.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I've just been preparing myself for when he fired me; I really wasn't expecting him to listen to anything you had to say. You must have been pretty persuasive, Mac."

He shrugs, "I just told the truth. Well, I might have exaggerated a little."

"Thank you, Mac. I appreciate this. I don't know what I would've done if he would've fired me," she stands on her toes to kiss his cheek.

"It was nothing."

"So… what is the other good news?"

"We found two of the three men that Kolovos gave us. We will hopefully be able to make a case against them. But if not, I'm sure they have enough in Greece to put them away for a long time."

"What happened to the third one?"

"I don't know. He wasn't with the other two in the apartment they rented under a fake name. We've got men staking the place out in case he comes back. But I'm sure we'll find him soon enough. He'll make a dumb mistake or his partners will give him up eventually. You have nothing to worry about," he hugs her.

"Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah, they're all fine. Nobody was hurt."

"That's good then."

"So… what are we going to do now that I can come back to work? I mean, should we tell the guys or… keep it to ourselves for a while?"

"It doesn't matter to me."

"We'll let them figure it out on their own."

He smiles, "Are you ready to go?"

"Yep," she takes his hand and let him lead her out the door.

"You do know that they'll figure it out in about thirty seconds if we walk into the lab holding hands tomorrow morning?"

"I know. But there's no one here to find out tonight."

A/N: So I have some bad news (ironic, since the chapter is titled 'Good News')... they are apparently klling two people in the finale. And we won't find out who the second one is until the premiere in the fall. How evil can they be? I don't think they'd kill Mac (even though they have tried to in every other finale), and I really hope it's not Stella. And there would be lots of mad people if they killed Danny or Lindsay; plus it would just be mean to do that to them. This just ruined my day... Well, I have to write my conclusion to my research paper and practice my piccolo. Please keep the reviews coming. Two more chapters to go; next one will be up tomorrow.